Jeff Sessions: quorum call: mr. sessions: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. sessions: madam president, i would ask that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sessions: and i would ask that i be allowed to speak until 11:00. i think that's the agreed upon

Jeff Sessions: time; and that i be notified at 10:55. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sessions: mr. president, the american people have high expectations of their leaders. they should have that, and they should demand that. and one of the basic expectations that we should have

Jeff Sessions: for our president that he would be honest and forthright in discussing the critical issues facing our nation. he should engage in the nation's most important debates and provide leadership and take all appropriate steps to protect our nation when we face a clear and present danger.

Jeff Sessions: clearly, the dominant issue of our time, i think there is no dispute within this chamber, that issue is our fiscal path, the debt course we're on, the fact that we want to see our country be prosperous and grow, create more jobs, not losing jobs.

Jeff Sessions: and to do that, we've got to confront the large soaring debt that we have. it dwarfs all other issues. the american people know it. they gave a shellacking to the big spenders in the last election. it's what i hear whenever i'm at home, what my mails and e-mails and phone calls say. people are worried about the

Jeff Sessions: future of our country economically, and they are exactly right. the people that are not right are those who say change is not necessary. people who are in the n denial -- people who are in denial, government agencies and departments, people who receive governmental grants and programs think that nothing has changed in their own minds, but things

Jeff Sessions: have changed. i wish it weren't so, but it is so. so the congressional budget act requires that congress pass a budget every year by april 15. that's this friday. the budget that congress has received from the white house a few weeks ago, i have described

Jeff Sessions: as the most irresponsible budget ever submitted by a president to the congress and to the nation because it did nothing to confront the problems we face. it made no recommendations about the entitlement programs -- social security, medicare, medicaid. zero.

Jeff Sessions: it increased discretionary spending, increased taxes by $1.7 trillion. and according to the congressional budget office who analyzed the president's budget, they conclude that had it increases the debt, when it's all over, more than the debt would have been increased if we

Jeff Sessions: hadn't had a budget from the president, even with the $1.7 trillion in new taxes. that's why it was irresponsible. it did not confront the issues that we so seriously confront today. and he said when he announced it that that budget would cause us to live within our means, that

Jeff Sessions: it would not increase the debt and that we're not going to spend any more money than we're taking in. fact check organizations have all found that to be false. it's plainly false. the lowest single year in which we have a deficit -- and we have a deficit every year under the

Jeff Sessions: president's budget -- is $740 billion. and it's increasing in the tenth year to $1.2 trillion. the highest deficit president bush was $450 billion. the lowest president obama projects in ten years is $750 billion and going up in the out

Jeff Sessions: years to $1.2 trillion. in contrast, house budget committee chairman paul ryan has made the most serious attempt, i think, maybe in history to deal with the systemic threats our country faces to tackle our long-term fiscal challenges. now, the bowles and simpson debt

Jeff Sessions: commission cochairmen appointed by president obama -- his own commission -- described paul ryan's budget this way: a serious, honest, straightforward approach to addressing our nation's enormous fiscal challenges. they went on to say -- quote -- "going forward, anyone who issues an alternative plan to

Jeff Sessions: chairman ryan's should be held to the same standard when offering their solutions. we simply cannot back away from these issues." close quote. rather than defend the president's budget or offer an alternative, what we've been seeing in this chamber are just

Jeff Sessions: attacks on congressman ryan, attacks on anybody that says change has got to occur. they act like nothing has to change. many remain in denial. our chairman, senator conrad, who said so many good things -- our democratic chairman -- about the need to challenge the status

Jeff Sessions: quo and make changes to put our country on the right path, said representative ryan's proposal is partisan and ideological. he provides dramatic tax cuts for the wealthiest financed by draconian reductions in medicare and medicaid. his proposals are unreasonable

Jeff Sessions: and unsustainable. close quote. well, is this going to be the nature of our discussion? i thought we were supposed to be trying to reach a bipartisan understanding of the challenges facing us and do something about it.

Jeff Sessions: you saw what the president's own debt commission cochairman said respectfully of the ryan proposal. and this is what our leadership says. others have called it extreme. they say it's driven by these evil tea party people who don't know anything. they know something. they know the government is spending us into virtual bankruptcy and that congress has

Jeff Sessions: that after really not once discussing with the american people why we have a crisis, i called on him before the state of the union message to enter into a dialogue with the american people, to look them in the eye and explain why we're in trouble, why we've got to who wants to go and propose any

Jeff Sessions: reduction in any spending? the pres sessions, you have five minutes left. mr. sessions: i thank the president. and who wants to do that? we're in a position where we have to make those kind of tough choices, just like our counties, our cities, our mayors, our state governors are make every

Jeff Sessions: day. so now we're told the president is going to give a speech. he hasn't yet even discussed the danger we face. and we're told that the president is planning this major speech to discuss our long-term fiscal problem. well, i'd say, first of all, it

Jeff Sessions: has to be considered a dramatic admission that his previous claims that his budget calls on us to live within our means, to pay down the debt and not add to the debt were false. they say that the president will support some of the recommendations in the fiscal

Jeff Sessions: commission, his own commission, bowles and simpson. i hope that's true, but i just want to say this: at this point in history, with the budget supposed to be passed in the senate friday, and we haven't even had a markup to have a hearing on a budget, we've not seen one other than the president's previous budget which is so utterly irresponsible, i think he owes

Jeff Sessions: more than a speech. we hear a lot of speeches in this country, a lot from the president. all we need is numbers. what he needs to do is submit a new budget. if he's going to change his projections for the future and go into -- propose alterations

Jeff Sessions: in our entitlement programs, let's see the numbers. he's got, what? 300, 500 people in the president's office of management and budget. so if this is serious, let's have a serious proposal. the house has done it. the house, republican house,

Jeff Sessions: they've got a budget. they're going to move that budget. i suspect we'll have that budget passed in the house by friday. it's got real numbers, real integrity, real change. it puts us on a path to prosperity, not debt and decline. the american people know this is serious. they know we're in a dangerous time.

Jeff Sessions: and all we have to do is rise up and make some tough choices like mayors and governors and families are making around their kitchen table every day. this is not -- when we get through this exercise -- and we will; over a period of years probably -- we're not going to find that the government sank into the ocean because we

Jeff Sessions: reduced agencies 15%, 20%, 25%, even if they need to be that much. most won't have to be that much. so the president needs to lay out concrete specific details about how he intends to solve these challenges that we face. not a general speech. and the house and senate budget committees must be able to

Jeff Sessions: review what he proposes, as the budget act presumes, in real numbers, and add them up. and the congressional budget office needs to be able to analyze it, the nonpartisan budget office to, see what will

Jeff Sessions: actually play out in terms of dollars. the executive office of o.m.b., the president can do this, in 1996 president clinton produced four budgets, and that shutdown occurred during that time, and

Jeff Sessions: they had a big fight during that time. but you know what happened three years later? the budget was balanced. yes, it was a messy fight and people made a lot of mistakes. but the end result was the american people said you're spending too much. congress rose up and said we're not going to keep doing this. and they balanced a budget. we're in a deeper hole today.

Jeff Sessions: it's going to be a lot harder, but it can be done again if we meet the challenges. so the questions that must be answered by the president in the new budget are some of these: the fiscal commission recommends $1.3 trillion less in discretionary spending than proposed in the president's budget.

Jeff Sessions: how does the president plan to alter his budget to achieve those savings? the fiscal commission recommends finding $600 billion in entitlement savings. but the president's budget would increase entitlement spending by $905 billion. that's his budget he submitted already, a few weeks ago. how does he intend to achieve

Jeff Sessions: these savings in enstphaoeuplts the fiscal -- in enstphaoeuplts the fiscal commission recommendations would reduce our debt by $4 trillion. the ryan plan would reduce it by $5 trillion. but the president's budget would increase the debt by $10 trillion and would not produce

Jeff Sessions: any savings really. how would the president alter his original budget to reduce the debt by $4 trillion. i'd like it to see something more than a speech. give me a break. i'd like to see some numbers. sphwhr so we can discuss it. -- where? so we can discuss it.

Jeff Sessions: once the president engages, we can have that long overdue national dialogue about solving the nation's problems. but he's got to acknowledge we have one, as every wince has told us. the debt commission chairman,

Jeff Sessions: sirch does on an bowles, said this nation has never face add more predictable financial crisis. they see it coming. we've got to change. so i hope in his speech he'll discuss entitlements, discuss whether it is good to burden the energy companies with new taxes,

Jeff Sessions: discuss whether we should tax small businesses even moshings discuss the military budget. these are real tough issues. i think the president should talk about that. rather than trying to drain every cent of tax revenue from the american people, washington should try to drain every cent of waste from the federal budget. i hope this does not continue

Jeff Sessions: the pattern of retreat that is already emerging where the president supports deficit reduction in theory but resists practice and claims credit when he's forced to accept reductions. for a presidency to abdicate his responsibility to lead the effort to meet one of the

Jeff Sessions: greatest challenges of our nation's history would be tantamount to leaving the battlefield in a time of war. so i hope we have a speech. i hope it's backed up with real numbers, and i hope and pray that it represents a recognition by the president of the united

Jeff Sessions: states that we have a serious fiscal challenge before us. business as usual cannot continue. change is necessary, and that he intends to participate in that and help lead the good change that's necessary. i thank the president and would yield the floor.

Jeff Sessions: quorum. that the dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sessions: i believe there is moving forward. the presiding officer: morning business is closed. under the previous order, the senate will proceed to -- to executive session to consider the followi